Anti-Photons ;-)

posted on March 10th, 2009, 7:15 pm

Dear FO team!

The interception module of the scout cube a great invention, that permits me surviving he first minutes of a game. The only bad thing about it is it's name. There are no Anti-Photons 'cause photon is it's own anti -particle. A photon, which is able to annihilate another one is just the same, with a phase shift of pi.

Please just devise something different for it's name, which is not so obviously wrong. It fells like a drop of ink in pure water for me. In my opinion there is no need to invent a whole new term of technology, just because of one ship. A photonic torp would do the job too. On the other hand there are so many other particles that could be used for destructive reactions. E.g. mesons decay unter dissipation of energy. I think any technobabble is OK unless it cant't be proven wrong up to today.

PS:
I know there once was a anti-photon-pulse (http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Antiphoton_pulse) but there's no need to incorporate something, that is known to be rubbish. See: http://memory-alpha.org/de/wiki/Photon).

posted on March 10th, 2009, 7:23 pm

don't know if its right what you said (but I think so ). i just want to say I agree to mimesot. when theres no anti protons somebody should change the name.

@mimesot: why are you so sure 

[Optec]

posted on March 10th, 2009, 7:26 pm

Last edited by Optec on March 10th, 2009, 7:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Hu, no somebody is reading our tooltips close

Yea, same goes to more obviouse things like sound in space, warp and timetravel, but Fleet Operations would be quite silent, following the laws of physics.

Fleet Operations takes place over 300 years and the future. There might probably be anti photons.. or subelements of quarks (no one realy knows if they are atomic). Hell we don't even know what most of the particles are for, so I have no problem using a few semi-scientific stuff to bring it a bit closer to what the 25th century might offer. Appearntly in Star Trek there are Anti-Photons. You can also think of them as not strictly the counterpart to photons, but another particle with similar, but slightly different properties. Similar historical "false friends" names exist even in modern science.

By the way as far as my "Spektrum der Wissenschaft" (a german science paper) knowledge goes, the term "Anti-Photon" is acutally used for Photons with inverse temporal "velocity", Photons travelling "backwards in time". So i think we can go with that term

If anybode comes up with more interesting ideas of mass destruction or weaponry (dear CIA forum bot, please dont read this topic), just post their names and perhaps the scientific idea behind it, I'm always happy to include something "real" or something thats hypotetically possible today

[mimesot]

posted on March 10th, 2009, 10:51 pm

Last edited by mimesot on March 10th, 2009, 11:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

@ Drone

I'm studying physics *gg*, thats why I'm so sure. btw i am talking about Anti-Photons, not Anti-Protons. The later can be produced today, to perform experiments with.

To give my prior statement reason: A anti-particle is one, that has all additive quantum numbers (e.g. charge, baryon number,...) reversed but not it's non-additional values (mass, spin,...). The negative of zero is zero and a photon has a value of zero for all its additive quantum numbers, thus it is its own anti-particle. 



@ Optec

Sound in Space is a necessity for that game to have a satisfying acoustical  background, and btw it's really well done. Same goes for the velocities of different shiptypes, which we certainly need for a proper gameplay. And the same goes for Warp too, which is necessary for interstellar races to get into contact, though it causes causality paradoxa. Things, which are not realy essential for a game, but physically wrong should be avoided IMO, to save its reputation. That is one of FOPs very impressive properties and should be preserved as StarTrek itself tries to avoid collisions with real physics as far as possible. 

300 years in the future, or some millennia, there will be no anti-photons, because, they are already defined as being the same as photons (details seen above). You'd need to activly missuse the term for something different, though everyone kwows better. Isn't that a little unpleasant?

I think, that photons, that travel backwards in time are a quite dangerous assumption (though a helpful model in particle physics), because they rise the same annoying questions as travelling back in time and shooting your grandpa (except of a deterministic universe, also  , i'd prefer a free will). Also creating new "false friends" is a rather inconvenient, isn't it?

New ideas of weaponary: A realy malice tool would be the use of neutrons. A neuron beam or a bomb would act like that "psionic beam" of the shadow class in stock armada. It has a relative lethal rate for the crew and could be used to prepare boarding of a large sized vessel. That weapon would fit for klingons, romulans and the dominion.

If you like anti particles: What about Anti-Electrons = Positrons? A double pack of Torpdos. Fire one to the front, and one to the back of the enemies vessel and the Leptons will try to make their devasting way through the hull. The particles are charged and may be caught in the (if magnetic) shields, which would be lowerd drastically then.

Simple mass drivers? The Deflector is made for protecting the front, but the shields are surly not made for stopping a piercing projectile at relativistic velovities. This is a question of reaction time, not of power.

What about a simple gravimetric shockwave? In ST we have nearly infinite energy and exotic particles are their daily bread, so why not kuch a vessel with such a pulse? Let's see if the plasma stays in the EPS conduits. Otherwise the ship would suffer a short energy breakdown.

Oh, the options of physically unchallangeable hypotheses is sheer infinite, why use something currently contradictable.

Have a nice evenening
mimesot

posted on March 10th, 2009, 11:02 pm

What about Wesley's Warp Bubble?  Starfleet knows how to do it now.  Good way to eliminate an enemy ship, if you're willing to take your warp-drive offline for a while to do it.  Though by canon, the Borg shrug it off pretty effeciently thanks to the unimind.

posted on March 10th, 2009, 11:07 pm

Simple mass drivers? The Deflector is made for protecting the front, but the shields are surly not made for stopping a piercing projectile at relativistic velovities. This is a question of reaction time, not of power.

i was wondering why there are not KE weapons in Fleet Ops. Also some kind of black hole weapon might be a nice addition as well.

posted on March 10th, 2009, 11:10 pm

anti-anti-matter weapons

posted on March 10th, 2009, 11:32 pm

anti-anti-matter weapons

um Matter weapons???

posted on March 11th, 2009, 12:38 am

sure

[Atlantis]

posted on March 11th, 2009, 1:30 am

Last edited by Atlantis on March 11th, 2009, 1:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

There's no way to put all this simple, it would require much too much explanation, just to find a "back story" behind the name of a little feature in a sci-fi game mod. People just make up the names; and so much technology is "impossible" by our current knowledge, so it's best to just accept it as being part of the show/game. Otherwise you could go through everything in this mod, picking out names and ideas that don't make sense... And what would you get in the end?

Though, if you do really want a way that it could make sense, there is another way to do this. Perhaps you should interpret the word "anti-" in a different way. Instead of it being anti-particle photons, how about it being something else that just disrupts photons? (in the same way that "anti-missiles" are not missiles made of anti-particles, but missiles that counter missiles). Given that "anti-" and "counter-" are interchangable prefixes for this function, "anti-photon" can mean this. Ok?

For the same reason, "anti-anti-matter weapons" might not mean "matter weapons". Just a defence mechanism against anti-matter weapons... =P

If I ever bother releasing any mod I create, I'm just going to name every weapon or technology "Magic [something]" - Magic Beam, Magic Pulse, Magic Field, Magic Drive...

posted on March 11th, 2009, 3:16 am

There's no way to put all this simple, it would require much too much explanation, just to find a "back story" behind the name of a little feature in a sci-fi game mod. People just make up the names; and so much technology is "impossible" by our current knowledge, so it's best to just accept it as being part of the show/game. Otherwise you could go through everything in this mod, picking out names and ideas that don't make sense... And what would you get in the end?

Though, if you do really want a way that it could make sense, there is another way to do this. Perhaps you should interpret the word "anti-" in a different way. Instead of it being anti-particle photons, how about it being something else that just disrupts photons? (in the same way that "anti-missiles" are not missiles made of anti-particles, but missiles that counter missiles). Given that "anti-" and "counter-" are interchangable prefixes for this function, "anti-photon" can mean this. Ok?

For the same reason, "anti-anti-matter weapons" might not mean "matter weapons". Just a defence mechanism against anti-matter weapons... =P

If I ever bother releasing any mod I create, I'm just going to name every weapon or technology "Magic [something]" - Magic Beam, Magic Pulse, Magic Field, Magic Drive...

I disagrees the truly great mods and games have some kind of back story that they use for create things. also some star trek tech is in devolpment right now (eg cloaking, trasporter, laser weapons)
without a foundation in real life the stuff becomes gimmicky.

posted on March 11th, 2009, 9:31 am

yep most stuff and weaponry in the Fleet Operations universe has backstory, as soon as more keyfeatures of 4.0 are done i will start preparing a history and technology wiki for Fleet Operations. I see that there is quite some interest in the background.

Nice weapon ideas, noted down. if anyone comes up with more, just go for it there will definitely be new special weapons in the future

posted on March 11th, 2009, 9:35 am

@ Atlantis

There are several reasons why I believe it's worth to seek scientific reputation.

First we are talking about "science fiction" not just "future stories", so, if one wants to stick to that name, you'll nee to involve parts of science into that fictional world. But science always has to be handled accuratly, otherwise it becomes ridiculous, along with it's world. Star Trek never wanted to look ridiculous any way. The connection to real science is only broken if it's really necessary for the story (like warp, beaming,...).

Further on I don't appreciate the missuse of terms in any case. An anti-missile for example is defined as a counter-weapon. Anti-Photon is a defined scientivic term, but being de facto the same as a photon (reasoned in my last post). Call it counter photon torpedo if you like. Counter is a word for opposition too, but on different parameters, more precisly to it's action. A counter-photon torpedo does not make sense too, but is not a wrong term per se.

Science fiction tend's to grab ideas and creates funny stuff of it. Anti-Photon's were not taken from anywhere, but just invented for sake of their name, and it was not thought about what it is. That is not scince fiction, thats phantasy. If there was only one reason to invent that anti-photons, i'd say, they should stay, but there isn't. That term is just a name, not something well defined. StarTrek should be mor consistent than a soap bubble.

Do you need any further reasons?

Someting else:
What could Anti-Photons do? Destructice interference? What is there to interfere with? Ships are made of matter, not of photons. They could counter a laser beam, well, that's not likly, because you'd need a large space of coherence. But that's not what the interception module is intended for.

posted on March 11th, 2009, 9:41 am

I took Anti-Photons out of a theory about "the time loop" (as i read the stuff in german i might not get the exact translation), it was focused on the origin of and structure of past, presence and future, about our future could be our past and everyhting is looping and what that would mean for todays phyiscs, thats where anti-photons jumped in as the mirrorimage of the other side if the "loop", quite a good and interessting article.

I just renamed it to Anti-Anti-Photon torpedo.. just kidding, its now called Adapted Photon Torpedo

[Atlantis]

posted on March 11th, 2009, 10:39 am

Last edited by Atlantis on March 11th, 2009, 11:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

I disagrees the truly great mods and games have some kind of back story that they use for create things. also some star trek tech is in devolpment right now (eg cloaking, trasporter, laser weapons)
without a foundation in real life the stuff becomes gimmicky.

Yes, they do, but only AFTER they come up with the idea and name. The transporters were only put into star trek so they didn't need to use the Shuttle prop/set so much. They came up with the "science" for it afterwards. So yes, it was/is gimmicky.

Further on I don't appreciate the missuse of terms in any case. An anti-missile for example is defined as a counter-weapon. Anti-Photon is a defined scientivic term, but being de facto the same as a photon (reasoned in my last post). Call it counter photon torpedo if you like. Counter is a word for opposition too, but on different parameters, more precisly to it's action. A counter-photon torpedo does not make sense too, but is not a wrong term per se.

It is not a "misuse of terms". The two terms ARE interchangable within this function. In it's most basic form, "anti-" means "opposite", simple as that. It is not JUST for the scientific anti-particle use, it has many uses.

Someting else:
What could Anti-Photons do? Destructice interference? What is there to interfere with? Ships are made of matter, not of photons. They could counter a laser beam, well, that's not likly, because you'd need a large space of coherence. But that's not what the interception module is intended for.

I thought of it more like a kind of disruptor, not exactly intercepting the weapon itself, but making it inert by disrupting whatever effect photons have within the weapon.